Written by Tingan "tinganh" Huang
 MOUZ |  mTw | |||||||||
| BANS | ||||||||||
          PICKS |           | |||||||||
mTw vs. Mousesports - Game 1
Despite an evenly matched start, by mid game mTw took a sizable and decisive lead making Game 1 a pretty one-sided match in favor of mTw.
The first signs of difficulty started with the first blood gank on Shadow Shaman middle, which must have caused much frustration for SingSing as these ganks would later have multiple occurrences. Following the first blood however, Mouz was able to put up an effective defensive stance against mTw’s push bottom due to some misplays. Beastmaster initiated on Tidehunter while Enigma got hit by a lengthy shackleshot lending to a lost teamfight for mTw despite having a 5v4 advantage after picking off an out of positioned Chen.
Mouz takes a sizable gold lead early on with three tower kills showing the early game prominence of Chen and Shadow Shaman. Top tower was the most fruitful, as the Radiant squad smoked up and baited Leshrac yielding two hero kills and a destroyed tower. They jump to having a 500 gold lead, albeit due to perhaps excessive team pushing, suffered a 2000 experience deficit. When Mouz approached the bottom tier 2 tower, they felt the full weight of this deficit. After destroying the tower they still were in dismay as Blink Dagger Brewmaster and BKB’d Broodmother forced Chen to use test of faith to save low level Leshrac from death before he himself, soon went to the grave. Mouz lost this teamfight despite Enigma’s late entry, and a rather in effective one at that as he came only to black hole a manaless/ravageless Tidehunter.
The turning point came through on a huge misplay on Mouz’s end. After ganking Broodmother with a Blink Dagger’d Shadow Shaman with effective follow up, Mouz ceased an opportunity to take Roshan. In an effort to hastily defeat him, Shadow Shaman used his wards to take him down coupled with the lives of a few of Chen’s minions so that despite having a 5v4 advantage, most of Mouz’s heroes were ill prepared for a fight. As mTw initiated on Mouz to contest their Roshan attempt, juiceless Chen and Shadow Shaman in conjunction with a poorly used Ravage that caught nothing but Brewmaster’s wind and fire forms proved to be particularly ineffective against mTw’s forces, leading to another drastically lost 5v4 teamfight. Following this massacre, mTw confidently moved through Mouz’s jungle chasing down Windrunner who just couldn’t run fast enough, offering her a quick death as well as claiming Mouz’s tier 2 bottom tower. After this skirmish, mTw sat with a comfortable 3000+ gold lead and a 10,000 experience lead.
For the next seven minutes both teams continued to farm, though Mouz did with a little more apprehensive, choosing to spend most farming excursions holding hands and for good reason. With the power of levels and experience, mTw exerted their strength, taking Mouz’s top tier 2 tower uncontested whilst being able to defend middle from Mouz’s desperate push on mTw’s middle base tower as well as managing to pick off Windrunner during Mouz’s retreat.
mTw feeling really confident now, pushed through mid to finish off the rest of Mouz’s base along with their spirits and they did so quite effectively. They took buildings and lives with little loss as they smashed through 3 towers and 4 raxes in one go, forcing a dismal last ditch effort push by Mouz, which was crushed as surely as most other team fights throughout the match.
| mTw | MOUZ | |||||||||
| BANS | ||||||||||
  PICKS |     | |||||||||
mTw vs. Mousesports Game 2
mTw takes their second victory over Mouz despite a shaky start.
Mouz’s early presence was established by ineffective mTw plays: first was the failed gank attempt on Storm Spirit (mid) by Invoker and prophet with an invisibility rune. The inability to kill Storm Spirit slowed down Prophet’s farm with an unproductive result of merely forcing Storm Spirit’s healing salve. To further perpetuate Prophet’s unproductivity, an early four minute push on top tower by Chen, Brewmaster, and Vengeful Spirit against the lone, under leveled Beastmaster required Prophet’s aid, drawing him once again, out of his jungle, hindering his farm.
mTw managed to get on the board with a three man gank on Storm Spirit. Invoker, with the help of Shadow Demon & Prophet managed to kill Storm Spirit before he could hit the all-important level 6. However, after getting ganked, Storm Spirit exacted revenge with the assistance of Vengeful Spirit and a double damage rune managing to yield successive kills on Invoker due to, for the circumstance of Invoker, very unfortunate back to back double damage runes. Brew Master was also experiencing a similar start, managing to net two kills onto Beastmaster by utilizing the early farm advantage enjoyed by a two versus one scenario, allowing him to obtain a Blink Dagger by roughly twelve minutes.
Around midgame, both teams took some trades. Once in the form of support heroes: Shadow Demon for Vengeful Spirit, and another in the form of towers: middle for bottom. The next trade however, may not have been as even as the two before from the perspective of mTw as Mouz took Roshan while mTw took top tower. Storm Spirit manages to bully some rather underfarmed/underleveled heroes, netting a double kill on both Chen and Beastmaster in quick succession. At this point, Mouz is looking pretty sharp having three ideal heroes over the 300 GPM mark (Storm Spirit, Clinkz, and Brewmaster), while poor Beastmaster wallows in less than 200 GPM. Instead of exerting their advantage safely, their reckless confidence boded Mouz’s slow, but steady demise. In an effort to take mTw’s tier 2 top tower, Brewmaster and Storm Spirit overextend in a greedy attempt for more kills, sacrificing their lives, and aegis for Shadow Demon.
mTw’s saving grace was perhaps Tinker, who outperformed everybody in the game with a 10/1/15 score. Following the minor throw by Brewmaster and Storm Spirit, Tinker managed to teleport top for a kill on Clinkz while barely escaping Chen with a force staff and boots of traveling back home. With small plays mTw began clawing their way back into the game.
Mouz however, would not allow such a quick turn around and managed to net two kills on a countergank as mTw attempted a 3 man gank on Brewmaster that was quickly turned around; delivering Tinker’s first death alongside of Shadow Demon’s many.
The next decision however, really turned things around for Mouz. As Prophet pushed top to relieve pressure off Mouz’s push bottom, Clinkz responded by teleporting back up top, a sign for the rest Mouz to follow suit, however Brewmaster decides to stick around, getting caught and causing a very imbalanced team fight without their highest damage dealing hero, leading to a predictably lost team fight. Following this victory, mTw cuts their 10,000 gold deficit to a mere 6,000 one.
A gank top on Clinkz in the jungle with a plethoric amount of Vyses, forces Clinkz to use a buyback as mTw threatens Mouz’s top rax. mTw opts instead, to take down Roshan forcing a teamfight. Though they lose Beastmaster and Invoker in the process, their efforts proved fructiferous as they secured both the cheese, aegis, as well as a kill on Vengeful Spirit. These tools became mTw’s recipe for victory. They finally approach Mouz’s base at close to the one hour mark ready to fight and showcased that mobility was no match for copious amounts of disables. They tore up Mouz despite a multitude of buybacks and moved forward with another win.